‘Its fruit Jim, but not as we know it’

So the sun is finally shining here in Ireland and the plant growth, more than a month behind is finally bursting into life. All this good weather means I have very little time for my blog at the moment, so this weeks post is a quick one.

Here is some strange looking fruit I came across on the internet recently.

These Buddha shaped pears are the creation of Gao Xianzhang.

Gao has been working on his pear-growing technique for six years and this season he managed to grow 10,000 Buddha-shaped baby pears. Each fruit is grown in an intricate Buddha mould and ends up looking like a juicy figurine. The ingenious farmer says the locals in his home village of Hexia, northern China, have been buying his Buddha pears as soon as he picks them from the trees. Most of them think they are cute and that they bring good luck.

Their success in China has convinced Gao to start exporting them into Europe.

Another strangely shaped fruit I came across are these watermelons from the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji.

However this one is not a fad. The technique actually has practical applications.

"The reason they're doing this in Japan is because of lack of space," said Samantha Winters of the National Watermelon Promotion Board in Orlando, Florida.

A fat, round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. But clever Japanese farmers have solved this dilemma by forcing their watermelons to grow into a square shape.

Farmers insert the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.

The square boxes are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, allowing full-grown watermelons to fit conveniently and precisely onto refrigerator shelves.*

*Source http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/15/square.watermelon/index.html